CABOT CONTROVERSIES 


AND 

\ 


THE RIGHT OF ENGLAND TO 

NORTH AMERICA. 

* 


By JUSTIN WINSOR. 

■* l/ 


Reprinted, One Hundred Copies, from the Proceedings of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1896. 


) ) > 



CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN WILSON AND SON. 


(Enibcvsttg Dress. 

1896. 






/ 


THE CABOT CONTROVERSIES. 


With our present knowledge of the adventures by sea of 
the Normans and Bretons, or of the Biscayans and Basques, it 
cannot be proved that in the later years of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury, any or all of them caught fish on the banks of Newfound¬ 
land, and so equalled on the American coast the hardihood of 
their known pursuit of whale, at that time, in the Icelandic 
seas. It needs only to be shown that these sea-going folks 
accomplished similar exploits in search of cod, to make it 
probable that before the days of John Cabot such people had 
become acquainted with the northeastern shores of America. 
We have no documentary evidence that the Bretons, for 
instance, were on the Newfoundland coast before 1504 ; but 
there is nothing improbable in the supposition that much 
earlier visits were made by courageous mariners. In those 
times as well as later, the Church enforced observance of a 
large number of days on which fish was the permitted food. 
On other days in winter a meat diet was little known among 
the common people. Seamen accordingly took great risks in 
distant seas to obtain fish for salting. 

There is a chance that some dated manuscript or chart may 
yet be discovered which shall establish the certainty of such 
Biscayan, or perhaps Norman visits. In the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury Spain actually rested her right to fish on these shores in 
the frequenting of them by Basque fishermen before the 
Cabot discoveries, though it seems to have been near the 
middle of the sixteenth century before the Spaniards were 
again in any numbers in these waters. 1 

1 Prowse's Newfoundland, p. 42. 



4 


In Peter Martyr’s account of the early English voyages, 
it is said that Cabot found the word Baccalaos used on this 
coast, or, at least, that is one interpretation of his Latin. As 
this term was one common on the Biscayan shores for stock¬ 
fish or cod, it might be deemed conclusive evidence of a 
previous acquaintance by the Basques with this coast, if 
Martyr’s language would bear such an interpretation in the 
opinion of all scholars ; but it will not, though Harrisse seems 
to think that the expression was used by the natives of the 
coast,' and not by the common people of Biscay, which is 
the point in dispute. Judge Prowse thinks that the English 
began to fish on the coast in 1498, the Portuguese in 1501, and 
the French in 1504. 

Owing to the lack of explicit and published documentary 
evidence, events which were later proved to mark two separate 
voyages of the Cabots were so confused in the minds of 
chroniclers, that for more than three hundred years the voyage 
of discovery in 1497, followed up the next year by one for 
possible colonization, were reckoned as one, as has been 
unaccountably done in a recent u History of the New World, 
called America,” by E. J. Payne. The confusion was long 
ago dispelled, when Richard Biddle published his u Memoir 
of Sebastian Cabot” in 1831, and therein solved what was at 
that time the chief riddle of the Cabot story. The narrative 
of these voyages is, however, still left singularly studded with 
mooted points, and the controversy over them has served to 
keep alive our interest in the exploits of these English pioneers 
in American discovery. We are now to pass in review these 
further controverted questions. 

Charles Deane represents that John Cabot was born in 
Genoa, and was naturalized in Venice. This is the view of 
Harrisse, who goes critically into the evidence. Tarducci, 
who had elaborately discussed the point in the “ Re vista 
Storica italiana ” in 1892, repeated his argument for Venice as 
the birthplace in his later book on the Cabots. Bullo, in a 
monograph, contends with little force for Chioggia. The 
opinions of Deane and Harrisse are the best sustained. 

The controversy over the date of the voyage of discovery 
yields more easily to demonstration. Hakluyt, in his pre¬ 
liminary single volume, published in 1589, had cited one of 
the legends of the Cabot mappemonde (1544), which gave the 




5 


date as 1494. On tlie strength of this, before the map itself 
had been brought to the notice of modern scholars, and not¬ 
withstanding Hakluyt later adopted the date 1497, other 
writers, like Harris and Pinkerton, had accepted the date of 
1494, and it has been agreed to in our day hy D’Avezac and 
Tarducci. When Hakluyt, in 1(300, made the change to 1497, 
some years after Lok in his map had given that date, he 
set a fashion which became more prevalent; and it was 
adopted by Biddle as the only possible date, in view of the 
fact that the royal license for the voyage was issued in March, 
1495-6. 

In 1843 the discovery of the only copy of the Cabot map 
which has been found, and which is now in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale at Paris, showed that Hakluyt, in copying the 
legend in 1589, had done so correctly ; for the date 1494 was 
plainly given upon the map. R. H. Major, of the British 
Museum map department, endeavored to account for the 
date 1494 by supposing that in the printer’s copy of the 
legends, the Roman figures VII had been read IIII, because 
the inclining strokes of the V were not brought together at 
the bottom. Cumulative evidence, as well as that of the 
patent, has made it certain to the large majority of investiga¬ 
tors that 1497 is the exact date. A conclusive document in 
support of this date, as well as in proof of the unquestionable 
agency of the elder Cabot, as against his son’s, in the discovery 
of that year, was found some years ago in the archives at 
Milan. It is a letter of Raimondo de Soneino, which was 
originally published in 1865, reprinted by Desimoni in 1881, 
and was first given in English by Deane in 1883, and later, in 
another version, by Prowse in 1895. The Cabot map gave 
the particular date as June 24. This has generally been 
accepted as correct; but Harrisse has recently argued that it 
is an impossible date, inasmuch as ten or fourteen days more 
would have been necessary to reach the coast from the time of 
leaving England. 

The scene of the landfall is still in dispute, and is likely to 
remain so. There was no documentary evidence on the point, 
except inferentially, till 1843, when the Cabot map was dis¬ 
covered. It was then found that the expression Prima tierra 
vista was engraved across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, beginning 
at a point near the northern extremity of Cape Breton Island. 


6 


i 


It was of course a question whether this meant that the 
island, as a whole, was the land first seen, or that this particu¬ 
lar northern cape of the island was intended. That it con¬ 
veyed this latter exactness of description is the opinion of 
Deane, Bourinot, and others ; while S. E. Dawson, ih-a paper 
published by the Royal Society of Canada, thinks that the 
island as a whole was intended, and that the true landfall was 
the proper Cape Breton, at the southeast corner of the island. 
With this view he contends for the small island, Scatari, lying 
seaward of that point, as the island of St. John discovered on 
“ the same day.” Those who favor the North Cape point to 
Prince Edward’s Island as the attendant island. Dawson’s 
view is in a measure sustained by the Portuguese Portolano, 
usually dated from 1514 to 1520. Prowse, in dismissing Daw¬ 
son’s argument, depends upon what is called the “ liturgical 
test ” of early explorations, during which navigators named 
landmarks after saints’ days, the order of such days in the 
calendar being held to determine their course atid speed. He 
finds that this test as applied to Cosa’s coast names, sup¬ 
posed to mark Cabot’s progress, conflicts with Dawson’s 
theory. 

The eastern coast of Newfoundland has been accepted as 
the landfall by Howley and others. Howley indicates the 
particular locality as being within the southeastern peninsula, 
or the old colony of Avalon, as granted later to Lord Balti¬ 
more. Prowse, doubting the original character of the Cabot 
map, contends that there is no positive testimony as to the 
precise spot of the landfall, and thinks it may have been on 
the Labrador or Newfoundland outer coast, probably at Cape 
Bonavista on the latter, where John Mason, in his map of 
Newfoundland (1616 ?), places the legend, “ First found by 
Cabot.” This map is reproduced from Vaughan’s “ Golden 
Fleece ” (1625) in Winsor’s “ America,” vol. viii., and in 
Prowse’s Newfoundland, p. 106. 

An early Italian sojourner in the southern parts of North 
America, Galvano, died in 155T, and left behind an account of 
the New World, which was later printed, and a translation of 
it has been published by the Hakluyt Society. In this he speaks 
of Cabot seeing land in latitude 45° north, which so closely 
conforms to the testimony of the Cabot map that Deane sus¬ 
pects Galvano to have known that cartographical record. 




7 


When Biddle wrote, there was little question among scholars 
that Cabot’s landfall had been made on the Labrador coast. 
This view seemed to be supported by the reported conversation 
of Sebastian Cabot, and by the evidence of Thorne, and by 
the map of Juan de la Cosa, who had his knowledge probably 
from English sources. The official Spanish map of Ribero 
in 1529 bears a legend that the “ English from Bristol ” dis¬ 
covered the Labrador coast. Molineaux’s map (1600) also 
bore a Cabot legend on the same shore. Biddle, in his argu¬ 
ment, was not compelled to confront the testimony of the 
Cabot map, for it had not then been found. Harrisse, who 
writes long after that development, still contends for the 
Labrador theory, and shoves aside the evidence of the map. 
This he does in the belief that at this time (1544) France, 
through Cartier’s exploration, was establishing claims about 
the St. Lawrence gulf to the prejudice of England, and that 
Cabot, now in England, in order to rehabilitate the English 
counter claim, falsified the record, and inserted the inscription 
in a way to support the right of England to the territory 
adjacent to the gulf. It is hardly safe to hold that either of 
these contestants has established his theory beyond dispute. 

In the short interval between the landfall and August, when 
the return voyage was completed, there was not time for any 
extended exploration, and Cabot’s course after sighting land 
has been equally in dispute. Some contend that he made the 
circuit of the gulf, and passed out by the straits of Belle Isle. 
At all events it has been asserted that, wherever lie may have 
struck the land, Cabot practically pre-empted for England the 
continent of North America, by virtue of having seen it at the 
north before any one saw it at the south. This belief is better 
vouched for than any theory which has been developed, by 
Varnhagen originally, and later by Fiske and Boyd Thacher, 
to rehabilitate the claim of Vespucius to priority. If Cabot 
did not strike the Labrador coast, but rather the Newfoundland 
or Cape Breton shores, it may be open to doubt if he saw on 
his first voyage the mainland at all; and Markham contends 
that he did not. That Cabot supposed he saw it, thinking it 
doubtless Asia, seems apparent from the language of the 
second patent under which the voyage of 1498 was conducted. 
John Cabot is credited in this instrument with having seen in 
his earlier voyages both “ land and isle.” It is a quibble to 


8 


dispute the Cabot claim to priority on an}^ technical distinction 
between the mainland and any adjacent island. 

Whatever claim England later pressed for the possession of 
North America rested on what John Cabot now saw in 1497, 
when he took possession for the English crown. Still, after 
the voyage of the next year was accomplished, England for 
many years, notwithstanding sundry voyages for trade and 
observation, made no attempt to follow up her rights by 
occupancy. It has been conjectured that this apathy was 
owing, in part at least, to the unwillingness of Wolsey, who 
was ambitious of the papal chair, to displease the Emperor 
Meanwhile, however, English fishermen seem to have fre¬ 
quented the coast. I). W. Prowse, in his “ History of New¬ 
foundland'’ (1895) has pointed out how the English cod 
fishery on the Newfoundland banks, following upon the 
Cabots’ discoveries, influenced the growth of the maritime 
supremacy of England. “ The Newfoundland fishery,” said 
Ralegh, “ was the mainstay and support of the western coun¬ 
ties,” whence sprang the power that struck the Armada. Judge 
Prowse aims to show that this fishing-trade, up to 1680, was 
the greatest business enterprise in America, with intimate 
connection at times with New England and Virginia, and that 
the frequenting of Spanish fishermen on the coast practically 
ceased after the defeat of the Armada. Unfortunately, the 
fishery and trading voyages of the sixteenth century enter 
very little, or not at all, into the chronicles of discovery; and 
Judge Prowse, in fortifying his belief of the paramount 
authority of the English in the Newfoundland regions during 
the first half of that century, is obliged to depend on chance 
references in contemporary documents, or inferentially on 
customs long established when referred to in later papers. 

The act of the 33d year of Henry VIII., relative in part 
to fishing on the Newfoundland coast, is said to have been 
the first English Act of Parliament relative to the New 
World. 

After it came to be generally understood that the New 
World was a distinct continent, there grew up some jealousy 
in England of the success which other European people had 
had in colonization beyond the Atlantic. At this time Eden, 
a distinguished student of the new discoveries, began to exert 
some influence on the maritime spirit of England. In 1553 he 


9 


published a translation from Sebastian Munster, which he 
called “ A Treatise of the Newe India,” and two years later 
(1555) he printed a version from Peter Martyr, which he 
styled “ Decades of the Newe Worlde.” This account by 
Martyr, dated in 1516, is the earliest which we have of the 
printed narratives of Cabot’s voyages, and Martyr doubtless 
obtained the details from Sebastian Cabot, who is known to 
have been his friend. In like manner, what Ramusio tells us 
was derived from personal interviews of a similar character. 
When Eden wrote, Sebastian Cabot, an old man, was still 
alive in England, and the chronicler’s views may be supposed 
to have been to some extent influenced by the aged mariner’s. 
These opinions of Eden were that it behooved his countrymen, 
under the warrant of the Cabot discoveries, not to delay longer 
in taking possession of the New World from Baccalaos to 
Florida, — this latter region having been coasted by Cabot, as 
Ramusio represented, in his lack of discrimination between the 
two voyages. 

Harrisse found on the reverse of a manuscript map by Dr. 
Dee, preserved in the British Museum and dated 1580, a 
similar plea for English activity. Two years later (1582) 
Hakluyt printed his little “Divers Voyages.” He here noted 
for the first time the patent of March, 1495-6, to John Cabot 
and his three sons, and formulated a claim by virtue of the 
discoveries under that instrument to a stretch of the American 
coast from 67° in the north to Florida. The book also con¬ 
tained Michael Lok's map of 1582, wherein a delineation of 
Cape Breton bore the legend, u J. Cabot, 1497.” This is the 
earliest instance of the correct date in a printed document, 
and it offers beside a clear recognition of John Cabot’s agency 
in the discovery. A similar plea, when Hakluyt was trying 
to induce Queen Elizabeth to countenance Sir Walter Ralegh’s 
American projects, was again entered by that friend of dis¬ 
covery in 1584 in his “ Westerne Planting,” a treatise which 
remained in manuscript till 1877, when the Maine Historical 
Society published it under the editing of Dr. Wood and Dr. 
Deane. It has since been included in the Edinburgh edition 
of Hakluyt. 

We have already seen that Hakluyt’s larger volume of 
1589 cited the evidence of the Cabot map to the date of 1494, 
as that of the discovery. That volume reproduced some por- 


10 


tions of Hakluyt’s little collection of 1582, and gathered to¬ 
gether for the English reader the scattered testimonies of 
Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara, and the lesser authorities. A 
more extended grouping of such material appeared finally 
in the third volume of Hakluyt’s greater work, published in 
1600. He printed all these accounts just as he found them, 
with all their glaring inconsistencies, and made no attempts 
to reconcile them. 

Whether the father John Cabot was accompanied by his 
son Sebastian in this voyage of 1497, is still in dispute. Har- 
risse denies the presence of the son. So does Captain Duro, 
of the Spanish navy, in a paper in the u Espana Moderna.” 
Judge Prowse finds no record to show that any of John 
Cabot’s sons accompanied him, and contends that the names 
of Lewis, Sebastian and Sanctus Cabot were inserted in the 
patent “ to extend the duration of the charter to the full ex¬ 
tent of their young lives ” ; but in this he is unmindful of the 
fact that the patent itself continues the rights which it con¬ 
veyed to the heirs of Cabot. The English Drapers Company, 
in 1521, in an address to the king, said that Sebastian “ was 
never in that land himself,” while “ he makes report of many 
things as he hath heard his father and other men speak in 
times past.” Deane, on the other hand, thinks it almost cer¬ 
tain that Sebastian was on the ship. Sebastian’s own testi¬ 
mony, if it be accepted, seems to leave no doubt that he was 
his father’s companion. The legends on the map of 1544 
record for the first time the joint action of John and Sebas¬ 
tian Cabot in this initial voyage. The same conjunction of 
effort is implied in an inscription on a well-known portrait 
of Sebastian Cabot, which was painted while he was in Eng¬ 
land, and, finally coming into Biddle’s possession, was burned 
later in his house in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Copies, which 
had been made of it, are preserved in the historical societies of 
Massachusetts and New York. It has been often engraved. 

Dr. Deane speaks of Sebastian Cabot as “ the Sphinx of 
American history.” It seems to be to most minds certain, 
trusting his own testimony, that Sebastian was on the second 
voyage in 1498 ; but even this is denied by Harrisse, who is 
not inclined to accept any testimony of the younger Cabot 
not confirmed by other evidence. 

There is a dispute over his birthplace more perplexing than 


11 


that which concerns his father s nativity. Sebastian told 
Eden that lie was born in Bristol, England, whither his father 
had come not long before. On the other hand, he assured 
Contarini that he was a native of Venice,—a statement 
now accepted by Deane, Tarducci, and most of the other 
authorities. 

The character of Sebastian Cabot may be held, from the 
contradictions already indicated, to be easily open to dispute. 
Biddle and some later biographers like Nichols of Bristol 
have given him something like heroic attributes. Impartial 
critics, possessed of the later developments of research, can 
but expose Sebastian’s conflicting statements; yet it is fair to 
remember that these diversities are not drawn from anything 
that he has written, but from what others have reported him 
as saying. His shuffling conduct, when he tried to be false 
to his obligations, and sell maritime secrets to the Republic of 
Venice, may, perhaps, rest on sufficient evidence, since it is 
contained in a letter of Contarini, from the Milan Archives, 
and in the Calendars of the Venetian Archives (1551), as 
published by the English Government. Harrisse, particularly 
in his 4£ Discovery of North America,” and in his “ John Cabot 
and Sebastian, his Son,” denounces Sebastian Cabot as a liar 
and an intriguer ; but this critic is over anxious sometimes to 
impale his victim. Harrisse’s antagonist, the Spaniard Duro, 
speaks of Sebastian's moral dishonesty. He charges him like¬ 
wise with incapacity, and in scientific attainments and seaman¬ 
ship Harrisse is inclined to discredit him. It is difficult, 
however, to believe that administrative incompetency could 
have characterized very greatly a man who was sought, both 
by England and Spain, to take the management of their 
maritime affairs. That his mind was fertile in resources, and 
that he exercised in matters of detail a superior grasp, seems 
evident. As a student of phenomena, he was, if not the first, 
a leading agent to suspect that by observing the variation of 
the needle a law could be adduced for determining longitude ; 
and on his death-bed he talked of it as a secret of the sea¬ 
man’s art. He naturally carried his expectations too far, 
since first glimpses of nature’s laws are likely to incline the 
imaginative mind to excess of belief ; but the continued publi¬ 
cation to-day of magnetic charts, and the occasional use of 
them in navigation, show that Cabot’s insight was clear. 


i 


12 


His manuscript maps are lost; but Ilarrisse records in his 
“ Discovery of North America,” and in his English book on 
rt John Cabot,” etc., various mentions of them by his con¬ 
temporaries. His drafts were doubtless used by Juan de la 
Cosa in delineating the Asiatic coast in the map of 1500, now 
preserved in the Archives of the Marine at Madrid. This 
earliest delineation of the American regions was lost sight of 
till Humboldt drew attention to it, and nothing of an earlier 
date, showing the new world, has ever been found. The 
Spanish Government has lately reproduced it in full size, and it 
has been engraved by Jomard and many others, particularly its 
American parts. There is good reason to believe that Cabot’s 
charts were used for the regions of the northeast by Ruysch, 
who produced the earliest engraved map, showing the new dis¬ 
coveries, which appeared in the Ptolemy of 1586, and has been 
reproduced by Winsor, Nordenskiold, Prowse, and many 
others. Prowse, 1 who also despises Sebastian Cabot, thinks 
that in the poor estate of his old age he may have sold his 
maps to Spain, and that their disappearance may have been 
occasioned by the jealousy of Spain in keeping secret maps of 
the New World, — a habit charged upon the Spanish Hydro- 
graphical Office of that time, particularly by Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert. Harrisse seems inclined to doubt this habit in cases 
which tell against his theories, though he acknowledges that 
the Pilot Major was not in the early years permitted to sell 
maps, and shows how Sebastian Cabot, while in that office, pre¬ 
vented others from doing the same. The engraved map of 
1544, usually cited as the Cabot mappemonde, and now pre¬ 
served in the only copy known, in the great library at Paris, has 
been photographed, full-size, for some of the principal Ameri¬ 
can historical libraries, and has been often reproduced on a 
smaller scale in the great fac-simile atlases and elsewhere. 
There is some reason to believe that other editions or issues 
of it may have been produced, since the date 1549 is assigned 
to it, in the citation of some of its legends made by Chy- 
tryeus about 1565. These inscriptions are further enigmas ; 
for while Sebastian Cabot must necessarily have been the 
source from which some of the statements are drawn, there 
are parts of the legends which it is impossible to believe 
represent such knowledge as he must be supposed to have 

1 Newfoundland, p. 30. 


< t i 



1 o 
lo 


had. Ortelius, the earliest maker of atlases, possessed, in 
1570, a copy of the map; but he throws no light upon it. 
These legends are not all a part of the map itself, but most of 
them are printed on separate sheets of paper and pasted on 
its margin. They interlink with the body of the map in such 
a way, however, as to make it apparent that they belong to 
the publication. They are in Latin and Spanish, nearly 
matching. A manuscript copy of them in the hand of a 
learned Spaniard, Dr. Grajales, was found by Harrisse in 
the Royal Library at Madrid, and led that critic to think that 
Cabot may have furnished the data, and Grajales have worked 
up the text; but there does not seem to be evidence that 
Grajales may not have copied them from another copy or from 
the printed sheets. The inscriptions were never in their com¬ 
pleteness laid before scholars in print, till they were copied for 
Dr. Deane from the map. After his death the text with an 
English translation, made under his direction, was printed in 
the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 
February, 1891. Some of them are printed by Harrisse 
in his English book on Cabot. The same inscriptions from 
the original type, and printed in a brochure, turned up in 
1895, for the first time, in an auction sale of the library of the 
Chateau de Lobris, in Silesia, and was brought to this coun¬ 
try for a dealer in New York. The brochure furnishes a 
title — “ Declaratio Chartse Novse Navigatorias Domini Almi- 
rantis”—not before known. The inscriptions veil the fact 
that there were separate voyages of discovery and of attempted 
colonization. 

The voyage of 1498, conducted under the license granted 
February 3,1497-8, began in the following May and continued 
till the autumn or early winter. Our knowledge of its prog¬ 
ress depends unfortunately and largely on what Sebastian 
Cabot is reported to have said of his experiences in these 
vears; but we are forced to eliminate from his narrative what 
we must otherwise determine could only have belonged to 
events of the earlier voyage. We have, in addition, what is 
here and there recorded in various documentary sources. 
These last authorities have been rendered accessible in what 
has been collected in the works of Biddle, Harrisse, Deane, 
Tarducci, Pezzi, and Desimoni; and in the calendars of the 
Venetian and Spanish documents, published by the Master of 


A 


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14 

the Rolls, in London. An enumeration of the documentary 
sources of the two Cabot voyages, as well as indications of the 
places wherein they can be found, constitute a “ Syllabus ” at 
the end of Harrisse’s latest book on “ John Cabot and 
Sebastian, his Son.” 

There is another conflict of testimony as to the high lati¬ 
tude reached by Cabot on this second voyage. Some accounts 
sa}^ that it was 55°, and others about 67°, but it is possible that 
the larger figures refer to a later voyage, yet to be mentioned 
as among the possibilities. On his southern course he is 
said to have gone down to 36°, or, as again expressed, to the 
latitude of Gibraltar. That Ojeda in 1501 was ordered by 
Spain to the Florida coast to plant symbols of the Spanish 
rights thereto, and to bar out the English, is thought to have 
been occasioned by English visitors to that region, who, in the 
opinion of some, must necessarily have been Cabot and his 
companions on this voyage of 1498. 

There are two incidents in Sebastian Cabot’s career which 
have been thought to show that he could never have been so 
far south along this Atlantic coast. If he had, and had thereby 
„ > established any rights for England, it is thought that he would 

not have held his tongue in 1524, when he was at the Con¬ 
gress of Badajos and the claim of Spain to this coast was 
assumed. Again in 1535 he was present at the trial instituted 
by the Columbus heirs, and he there testified that he did not 
know there was a continuous coast from Baccalaos to Florida, 
which, with the experience assigned to him on this voyage, 
would have been perjury. Too much should not be made of 
these variances, however, since Sebastian Cabot at both these 
dates was a paid officer of Spain, and could hardly be expected 
to damage the interests of his Spanish masters or his own. 

That Sebastian Cabot made a later voyage to the north 
Atlantic coast is likewise a matter of dispute. Eden in his 
“ Treatise of the Newe India*’ (1553), while Cabot was living 
in England, mentions such a voyage as having occurred in 
1516. Hakluyt later, referring to it, makes the voyage, how¬ 
ever, take a direction towards the West Indies. Biddle found 
its destination in the Arctic regions, and says that Cabot was 
accompanied by Pert, and that the two explorers reached the 
latitude of 67° 30' — which is the extreme altitude of his 
northern exploration, as professed by Cabot himself to 


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V 


